KulhánkováDzurillova2 ————— Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 62 (2022) 365–384 Article copyright held by the author(s) and made available under the Creative Commons Attribution License CC-BY https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ The Historical Present in the Grottaferrata and Escorial Versions of Digenis Akritis: A Narratological Insight Zuzana Dzurillová and Markéta Kulhánková IGENIS AKRITIS is well known as the only representative of genuinely Byzantine heroic poetry. The anonymous poem, which narrates the life and deeds of an am- bivalent hero, a border guard of double descent, is composed in fifteen-syllable Byzantine verse and preserved in several rather different versions. Although its popularity is unlikely ever to reach the height it did in the late Byzantine period, it has grown significantly in recent decades. This is mainly due to modern editions and its translation into English,1 together with numer- ous studies that look at the narrative from various viewpoints.2 Our work contributes to this research by focusing on the two oldest versions of the poem and providing a comparative analysis 1 E. Trapp, Digenes Akrites. Synoptische Ausgabe der ältesten Versionen (Vienna 1971); S. Alexiou, Βασίλειος Διγενὴς Ἀκρίτης (Athens 1985); E. Jeffreys, Digenis Akritis: The Grottaferrata and Escorial Versions (Cambridge 1998). 2 For the most recent research survey see C. Jouanno, “Shared Spaces: 1 Digenis Akritis, the Two-Blood Border Lord,” in C. Cupane et al. (eds.), Fictional Storytelling in the Medieval Eastern Mediterranean and Beyond (Leiden 2016) 260–284. See also J. Trilling, “Re-Introducing Digenes Akrites: A Byzantine Poem of Strength, Weakness, and the Disturbing Absence of God,” Viator 47.3 (2016) 149–170; A. J. Goldwyn, “Zoomorphic and Anthropomorphic Metaphors in the ‘Proto-Romance’ Digenis Akritis,” in Byzantine Ecocriticism (Cham 2018) 39–84; E. Villa, “A Note on Digenis Akritas G 5.242 and Z 6.1813,” GRBS 61 (2021) 183–192; M. Kulhánková, “Narrative Coherence in Digenes Akrites (G),” BMGS 45 (2021) 184–198. D 366 THE HISTORICAL PRESENT IN DIGENIS AKRITIS ————— Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 62 (2022) 365–384 of their use of the so-called historical present tense (HP)—a generally neglected topic in the study of Byzantine literature.3 1. Using the present tense in narrative discourse for a past state of affairs The primary narrative tenses in Greek are the imperfect, the aorist, and the perfect. For the period of our interest, the recent Cambridge Grammar of Medieval and Early Modern Greek defines the use of the imperfect as follows: it serves “to describe actions that are viewed as ongoing/progressive in the past (non-stative verbs), states that are viewed as persisting over time, or actions that are viewed as habitual/characterizing in the past.”4 As the ancient monolectic perfect “had fallen together functionally with the aorist long before the medieval period,” both the aorist and the perfect denote “eventualities in the past time that are viewed as single complete wholes.”5 In narrative discourse, the three primary narrative tenses occasionally alternate with the present tense. Holton et al. explain this tense-switching as follows: “present indicatives are used to comment on events taking place sequentially before the speakerʼs/hearerʼs eyes (e.g., the emperor arrives, takes his seat and nods to his officials). […] This type of ‘historic’ present is chiefly apparent in narrative texts, where it converts an account of past events into just such an eyewitness commentary.”6 3 To the best of our knowledge, the only in-depth analysis so far of the HP in Byzantine literature is T. Shawcross, The Chronicle of Morea. Historiography in Crusader Greece (Oxford 2009) 167–180. For recent studies of the HP in post- Byzantine literature see Z. Dzurillová, “The Historical Present Tense in Vitsentzos Kornarosʼ Erotokritos: Narratological and Philological Insight,” Neograeca Bohemica 21 (2012) 9–25; and C. A. Thoma, “The Function of the Historical Present Tense: Evidence from Modern Greek,” Journal of Pragmatics 43 (2011) 2373–2391. 4 D. Holton et al., Cambridge Grammar of Medieval and Early Modern Greek IV (Cambridge 2019) 1934. 5 Cambridge Grammar IV 1934. For the function of the perfect in Byzantine literature see also M. Hinterberger, “The Synthetic Perfect in Byzantine Lit- erature,” in The Language of Byzantine Learned Literature (Brepols 2014) 176–204. 6 Cambridge Grammar IV 1933. ZUZANA DZURILLOVÁ AND MARKÉTA KULHÁNKOVÁ 367 ————— Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 62 (2022) 365–384 Our objective here is to refine and extend this statement by analyzing the discourse-pragmatic functions and cognitive roles of the HP in two texts that render approximately the same story using different stylistic levels and applying different narrative strategies. In so doing we join recent trends in narratology and enrich its methodological approach with findings from cognitive linguistics.7 Our aim is twofold: first, we illustrate the types of HP according to narrative mode (diegesis vs. mimesis) and narra- tive movement (summary vs. scene), pointing out the differences between the two versions in their treatment of story time and discourse time; second, we elucidate the cognitive effects that the different ways of representing past events in the two narratives have on their audiences. The key opposition between diegesis and mimesis as modes of narrative discourse already interested ancient scholars. Pseudo- Longinus in his treatise On the Sublime (9.13) argues that the Odys- sey’s mode is mainly “diegetic” (διηγηµατικόν) while the Iliad’s is “dramatic” (δραµατικόν) and “actively engaging” (ἐναγώνιον). In modern cognitive terms, narrative mimesis implies an active engagement: with its use of proximal deictic expressions, first- person narration, concreteness, etc., the narrative induces the audience to process it like immediate experience. Diegesis, on the other hand, implies distance from the story.8 In narrative discourse, the difference is largely established by the narrative rhythm, in particular by the narrative speeds summary (in which the story time is longer than the time of the discourse) and the scene (in which the story and discourse time 7 For so-called cognitive narratology see, e.g., D. Herman, “Cognitive Narratology (revised version),” in P. Hühn et al. (eds.), The Living Handbook of Narratology (Hamburg 2013), at http://www.lhn.uni-hamburg.de/article/ cognitive-narratology-revised-version-uploaded-22-september-2013. 8 We adopt this key distinction for the present analysis as applied in A. A. Nijk, Tense-Switching in Classical Greek: A Cognitive Approach (Cambridge 2022) 67. 368 THE HISTORICAL PRESENT IN DIGENIS AKRITIS ————— Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 62 (2022) 365–384 are equal).9 We see the diegetic HP in a summary narrative, which accelerates the pace of narration, and the mimetic HP in a scenic narrative, which decelerates the pace of narration.10 In what follows we will elucidate both the mimetic HP, which functions as an important immersive device by bringing the narration close to an eyewitness commentary, and the diegetic HP, which provides changes in the narrative dynamics and serves as a cohesive device. Narration in the present tense with referential meaning to the past originates in the oral tradition and like other speech devices has undergone in various languages a long process of refining.11 From the perspective of diachronic development, the oral pattern of the HP, which is based on dynamic tense-switching in discourse with the episodic narrative structure typical of early medieval vernacular, has been transformed gradually into the written pattern of modern literary narratives.12 Thus, there is, on the one hand, dynamic and irregular alternation of past and present tenses and, on the other, more refined long sequences and strands of scenes carried in the HP and replacing the episodic narrative with a teleological one. With this change, the functions of the HP also changed. Initially, it served pre- dominantly to mark narrative turns and it provided a means of 9 Cf. G. Genette, Narrative Discourse. An Essay in Method (Ithaca 1980) 86– 112. 10 Nijk, Tense-Switching 66–146 and 147–232. 11 Whereas some scholars support the idea of the HPʼs diachronic de- velopment (S. Fleischman, “Temps verbal et point de vue narratif,” Études littéraires 25 [1992] 117–135; M. Fludernik, “The Historical Present Tense in English Literature: An Oral Pattern and its Literary Adaptation,” Language and Literature 17 [1992] 77–107), others oppose it. Among them is S. Zeman, who argues instead for different kinds of orality hidden behind this term: “Orality, Visualization, and the Historical Mind. The ‘Visual Present’ in (Semi-)oral Epic Poems and its Implications for a Theory of Cognitive Oral Poetics,” in M. Antovic et al. (eds.), Oral Poetics and Cognitive Science (Berlin 2016) 168–195, at 180–189. 12 Fludernik, Language and Literature 17 (1992) 77–78. ZUZANA DZURILLOVÁ AND MARKÉTA KULHÁNKOVÁ 369 ————— Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 62 (2022) 365–384 internal evaluation.13 With the gradual adoption of new seman- tics, the HP has become a means of internal focalization, a device that allows for a highly mimetic presentation of the nar- rated events.14 But if we look at the relationship between orality and literacy in medieval Greek literature, where various kinds and degrees of orality can be detected, things appear to be more intricate. We can roughly distinguish three types of texts: those that preserve elements of the oral tradition (primary orality); those originally written, but intended for oral performance (sec- ondary orality); and an in-between type that does not originate directly in the oral tradition but adopts some of its features as a conscious textual strategy (textualized orality).15 At least in the two versions of the Digenis Akritis analyzed, it is hard to tell if we are faced with transformations in the diachronic development of the HP or with different synchronic varieties of its use. What is certain is that versions E and G derive from different traditions of unclear relationship to the lost original, which was probably written down in the first half of the twelfth century. Therefore, they differ considerably. Surviving in a manuscript dated to the end of the thirteenth century and preserved in a monastery in Grottaferrata, version G is the longer one (3850 verses) and belongs to the middle linguistic register. Written down in the fifteenth century, version E survives in a manuscript found in the Escorial. It is considerably shorter (1867 verses) and belongs to the lower linguistic register, displaying several ver- 13 See W. Labov and J. Waletzky, “Narrative Analysis: Oral Versions of Personal Experience,” in J. Helms (ed.), Essays on the Verbal and Visual Arts (Philadelphia 1967) 12–44; S. Fleischman, “Evaluation in Narrative: The Present tense in Medieval ʽPerformed Storiesʼ,” Yale French Studies 70 (1986) 199–251. 14 Fleischman, Études littéraires 25 (1992) 117–135; T. Damsteegt, “The Present Tense and Internal Focalization of Awareness,” Poetics Today 26 (2005) 39–78. 15 C. Messis and S. Papaioannou, “Orality and Textuality (with an Appen- dix on the Byzantine Conceptions),” in S. Papaioannou (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Literature (Oxford 2021) 241–272, at 243. 370 THE HISTORICAL PRESENT IN DIGENIS AKRITIS ————— Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 62 (2022) 365–384 nacular linguistic elements.16 Among their differences are the narrative strategies they apply, including the use of the HP, which we explore below. 2. The diegetic HP in a summary narrative and the mimetic HP in a scenic narrative While both versions have a similar proportion of narrative sections and conversational and metanarrative sections, the ab- solute number and frequency of HPs is considerably different. As TABLE 1 shows, version E has on average one HP per every three and a half lines of narrative, while version G has one in every sixteenth:17 Grottaferrata 3749 lines Escorial 1867 lines Narrative sections 1852 (49.4%) 865 (46.3%) Conversational and metanarrative sections 1897 (50.6%) 1002 (53.6%) Number of HPs 113 245 HP frequency 1 in 16.4 lines 1 in 3.5 lines TABLE 1. Historical presents in the G and E versions The two narratives differ significantly in the way HPs are used and function. In version G the use of the isolated HP surrounded by past tenses prevails, whereas in version E HPs often constitute short sequences, which consequently affect the duration of the events narrated. An example from the first part of the poem, the so-called Lay of the Emir, illustrates this well. The following ex- tract, preserved in version G 1.226–233, recounts the moments 16 Cf. Jeffreys, Digenis Akritis xix–xxx. 17 The table is inspired by Y. Nakamichi, “On the Use of the Historical Present in the Gawain-Poems,” Geibun-Kenkyu 43 (1982) 173–184, at 183. ZUZANA DZURILLOVÁ AND MARKÉTA KULHÁNKOVÁ 371 ————— Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 62 (2022) 365–384 when the brothers are looking for their kidnapped sister in a ditch full of bodies of murdered girls:18 Ἐλάλησαν τοὺς ἵππους των, ἀπῆλθον ’ς τὸ ῥυάκιν· πολλὰς σφαµµένας εὕρηκαν εἰς τὸ αἷµα βαπτισµένας, ὧν µὲν αἱ χεῖρες ἔλειπον, κρανία τε καὶ πόδες, ὧν δὲ τὰ µέλη ἅπαντα, καὶ τὰ ἔγκατα ἔξω, γνωρισθῆναι ὑπό τινος µὴ δυνάµενα ὅλως. 230 Καὶ ταῦτα θεασάµενοι, ἔκπληξις τούτους εἶχεν καὶ χοῦν λαβόντες ἀπὸ γῆς ταῖς κεφαλαῖς προσραίνουν, ὀδυρµούς τε ἐκίνησαν καὶ θρήνους ἐκ καρδίας. They urged their horses on, and went off to the ditch; they found many girls slaughtered, soaked in blood; some lacked hands, heads and feet, others all their limbs and their entrails were on the ground; no one at all could recognize them. As the brothers gazed at them, they were overcome with shock; they took dust from the ground and they sprinkle it on their heads and uttered wails and lamentations from their hearts.19 The event is narrated in the past tense except for the sole present indicative προσραίνουν (232), which closes a passage that provides such details as the missing parts of the girls’ bodies. The HP, used immediately after this short description, accelerates the rhythm and moves the plot forward through a summary, thus changing the narrative dynamics. It does not aim to slow the narrative rhythm into a scene and to give the impression of eyewitness report (contra Holton et al.), quite the opposite. There- fore, it may be identified as the diegetic HP in a summary narra- tive for plot progression. Nevertheless, we should also consider possible metrical reasons for the use of the present: the political verse is composed in lines of fifteen syllables, divided into two hemistichs of eight 18 We follow the critical edition by Jeffreys, Digenis Akritis. HP is in boldface and past tenses are underlined. 19 Because the translation by Jeffreys does not preserve the HPs, we have modified it to make the HP visible in English. To help the reader tell apart the two modes of the HP, we will use simple present for the diegetic HP and the present continuous for the mimetic HP. 372 THE HISTORICAL PRESENT IN DIGENIS AKRITIS ————— Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 62 (2022) 365–384 and seven syllables. The tendency towards iambic accentuation is clear, but the stress is obligatory only on syllables 6 or 8 and 14.20 Thus, when the verb is placed at the end of either hemi- stich, as in this example, we cannot rule out metrical reasons for the choice of the present over the aorist or the imperfect.21 There are, however, a number of HPs in metrically unexposed posi- tions at the beginning or in the middle of a hemistich, where metrical considerations do not apply, for example 7.102–108: Ἐντὸς τοῦ οἴκου τῆς αὐλῆς ὑπῆρχε τὸ πεδίον πολὺ ἔχον διάστηµα εἴς τε µῆκος καὶ πλάτος· τούτου ἐν µέσῳ ἵδρυσε ναόν, ἔνδοξον ἔργον, ἁγίου ἐν ὀνόµατι µάρτυρος Θεοδώρου 105 καὶ ἐν αὐτῷ τὸν ἴδιον πανέντιµον πατέρα θάπτει κοµίσας τὸν νεκρὸν ἀπὸ Καππαδοκίας λίθοις τὸ µνῆµα φαεινοῖς, ὡς ἔπρεπε, κοσµήσας. Within the courtyard of the house was a flat area of great size of both length and breadth. In the middle of this Digenis set up a church, a glorious structure, in the name of the martyr Saint Theodore; and in it he buries his revered father, bringing the body from Cappadocia and adorning the tomb, as was fitting, with brilliant stones. Given the metrically unexposed position of the HP here, dis- course pragmatics remains as the sole motivation for the HP, and one can observe an acceleration of the rhythm that moves the plot forward.22 We now move to the representation of the scene with mur- dered girls in version E, which depicts the event in more detail (74–90): 20 For the basic metrical characteristic of the political verse see W. Hörand- ner and A. Rhoby, “Metrics and Prose Rhythm,” in The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Literature 407–429, at 413–416; and with a special attention to orality, M. Jeffreys, “From Hexameters to Fifteen-Syllable Verse,” in W. Hörandner et al. (eds.), A Companion to Byzantine Poetry (Leiden 2019) 66–91. 21 Similar instances in 1.56, 57; 2.155; 3.267; 4.48, 789; 5.34; 6.233. Cf. also Shawcross, The Chronicle of Morea 169. 22 Cf. 1.66, 193; 4.122; 5.782; 6.546. ZUZANA DZURILLOVÁ AND MARKÉTA KULHÁNKOVÁ 373 ————— Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 62 (2022) 365–384 Καὶ ὡσὰν τὸ ἐκοῦσαν οἱ ἄρχοντες, ἐθλίβησαν µεγάλως καὶ ὥραν πολλὴν ἐποίσασιν καὶ εἰς λογισµοὺς ἐµπῆκαν 75 καὶ µετὰ ὥρας περισσὰς ἐφέρασιν τὸν νοῦν τους· τὰ δάκρυα τους σφουγγίζουσιν, τὰ ρέτενα γυρίζουν, καὶ ἤλθασιν καὶ ηὕρασιν τὸ ἑρµηνευθὲν τὸ ρυάκιν. Ἐκεῖ ηὗραν τὰ κοράσια εἰς τὸ αἷµαν κυλισµένα· τῶν µὲν αἱ χεῖρες ἔλειπον, ἄλλων οἱ κεφαλές των, 80 µαχαιροκοπηµένες ἦν καὶ εἰς τὸ αἷµαν κυλισµένες. Τὰς χεῖρας των ἐξήπλωσαν, τὰς κεφαλὰς κρατοῦσιν καὶ βλέπουν καὶ τὰ πρόσωπα, νὰ εὑροῦν τὴν ἀδελφήν τους καὶ ὅλας ἐγυρεύσασιν, στέκουν καὶ θεωροῦν τας καὶ οὐδὲν ἐγνωρίσασιν ποσῶς τὴν ἀδελφήν τους, 85 ὅτι συζουλισµένες ἦν καὶ εἰς τὸ αἷµαν κυλισµένες. Καὶ ὡς εἴδασιν παράνοµα, τὰ ποῖα οὐδὲν ἐλπίζαν, εἰς θλίψιν ἐσεβήκασιν καὶ κάθουνται καὶ κλαίουν· χοῦµαν ἐπῆραν ἐκ τῆς γῆς, <’ς> τὰς κεφαλὰς τὸ βάνουν, τὸν ἥλιον ἐντρυχώνοντες µετὰ πολλῶν δακρύων. 90 When the lords heard this, they were greatly distressed; they delayed for a long time, lost in thought, and after very many hours they came to their senses. They are wiping their tears, they are shaking their reins and went and found the ditch that had been spoken of. There they found the girls dripping with blood, some lacked hands, others their heads, they had been stabbed with daggers and were dripping with blood. The brothers stretched out their hands, they are picking up the heads, and they are looking at the faces too, to find their sister; they examined all of them, they are standing and looking at them but in no way could they recognize their sister because the girls had been crushed together and covered in blood. When they saw these lawless deeds of a kind they had never expected, they began to grieve, they are sitting and weeping; they took dust from the ground and are sprinkling it on their heads, beseeching the sun with many tears. Here the HP occurs nine times (compared to once in version G), mostly in pairs alternating with past tenses. Despite the tense- switching, the reader can perceive a decelerating narrative pace that results in the scene’s equality in story time and discourse time. In other words, the degree of mimesis is high and processing 374 THE HISTORICAL PRESENT IN DIGENIS AKRITIS ————— Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 62 (2022) 365–384 the narrative feels like processing an immediate experience. The consequent mental involvement of the reader in the story is strong.23 The narrative provides terrifying images and details, such as the brothers’ holding the severed heads of the dead girls drowned in blood and examining their lifeless faces. This ex- perience of direct touch is absent in G. This suggestive scene is underscored by verbs in the HP expressing duration (κρατοῦσιν, στέκουν) and perception (βλέπουν, θεωροῦν). After examining many faces, the brothers mourn their allegedly dead sister. This intimate moment is expressed through the HPs κάθουνται, κλαίουν, and βάνουν. Again, the rhythm of the narration is decel- erated in order to suggest the characters’ emotional experience. Accordingly, these instances of the HP can be identified as mimetic in a scenic narrative, functioning as a means of internal evaluation—a narrative technique which tends to convey the viewpoint of a character, mirroring his or her “experience of events as they impinge on her situation or activities.”24 Again, metrical reasons should be considered as one of the reasons for the choice of some of the HPs in this passage (σφουγγίζουσιν, γυρίζουν, κρατοῦσιν, κλαίουν, βάνουν),25 but again there are several other verbs in unexposed positions, both in this passage (βλέπουν, στέκουν, θεωροῦν, κάθουνται) and elsewhere.26 Based on this and the analysis above, we argue that in the choice of tense to use, metrical reasons are of secondary importance. Let us now move to another example that demonstrates the difference in the treatment of discourse time between G and E, the passage recounting the moment when young Digenis first proves his extraordinary strength by killing a bear. The version G 4.124–138: 23 Nijk, Tense-Switching 67, 114. 24 M. Fludernik, Towards a ʽNatural ʼ Narratology (London 1996) 22. For more on internal evaluation, particularly in medieval literature, see Fleischman, Yale French Studies 70 (1986) 199–251. 25 Cf. also 27, 53, 194, 207, 455, 645, 976, 1454. 26 Cf. also 124, 208, 316, 466, 520, 584, 947, 1121. ZUZANA DZURILLOVÁ AND MARKÉTA KULHÁNKOVÁ 375 ————— Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 62 (2022) 365–384 Ἐκεῖνος ὢν ἀπείραστος εἰς θηριοµαχίαν οὐκ ἐγυρίσθη ὄπισθεν νὰ τοῦ δώσῃ ῥαβδέαν 125 ἀλλ’ ἐπεσέβη σύντοµα, ἐκ τὴν µέσην τὸ πιάνει καὶ σφίγξας τοὺς βραχίονας εὐθὺς ἀπέπνιξέ τον καὶ τὰ ἐντὸς ἐξήρχετο ἐκ τοῦ στόµατος τούτου· ἔφυγε δὲ τὸ ἀρσενικὸν εἰς τὴν ἕλην ἀπέσω. Ὁ θεῖος του τὸν ἐφώνησε: “Βλέπε, τέκνον, µὴ φύγῃ.” 130 Κἀκεῖνος ἀπὸ τῆς σπουδῆς ἀφῆκε τὸ ῥαβδίν του καὶ πετάσας ὡς ἀετὸς ἔφθασε τὸ θηρίον· ἡ ἄρκτος ἐστράφη πρὸς αὐτὸν στόµα χανοῦσα µέγα καὶ ὥρµησε τὴν κεφαλὴν τοῦ παιδὸς ἐκλαφῦξαι. Τὸ δὲ παιδίον σύντοµα τὸ µάγουλόν του πιάνει 135 καὶ τινάξας ἀπέκτεινε χαµαὶ βαλὼν τὸ θηρίον, στρέψας τὸν τράχηλον αὐτοῦ ἐξεσφονδύλισέ το καὶ παρευθὺς ἀπέψυξεν εἰς τὰς χεῖρας τοῦ νέου. He, lacking experience in fighting wild beasts, did not turn around to strike it with his stick but rushed up quickly and seizes it round the waist and, tightening his grasp, immediately throttled it, and its innards came out through its mouth. The male fled back to the thicket. His uncle shouted to him, “Child, see it doesn’t get away.” And in his haste he abandoned his stick and flew like an eagle and overtook the wild beast. The bear turned towards him with its huge mouth agape and charged up to swallow the boy’s head. The boy suddenly seizes its jaw and shook and killed the beast, throwing it to the ground; he twisted its neck and snapped its spine and immediately it expired in the young man’s hands. The mode of representing this event is purely diegetic. There are only two instances of the HP: the indicative present πιάνει (126, 135) that twice signals the narrative turn towards the climax of the passage, the killing of the beast. Because of their position in the verse, both cases can (also) be justified by metrical con- straints. In contrast, version E uses the HP to provide a strikingly mimetic representation of the action. The fight and the reaction 376 THE HISTORICAL PRESENT IN DIGENIS AKRITIS ————— Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 62 (2022) 365–384 of Digenisʼ companions are recounted as follows (773–780):27 Καὶ ὁ <θαυµαστὸς> νεώτερος εἶχεν γοργὸν τὸ στρέµµαν, ἦτον καὶ <γὰρ> ὑπόστεγνος καὶ ἐγνώθουντα οἱ νεφροί του, καὶ εἰς τέσσαρα πηδήµατα τὸν ἄρκον καταφθάνει 775 καὶ ἀπὸ τὸ κατωµάγουλον γοργὸν πιάνει, κρατεῖ τον καὶ εἰς δύο µέρη τὸν ἔσχισεν, στέκει καὶ θεωρεῖ τον. Ὁ θεῖος του καὶ ὁ πατὴρ οἱ δύο ὁµάδι ὑπᾶσιν, στέκονται καὶ θαυµάζονται τὰς τάξεις τοῦ νεωτέρου· ὦµον πρὸς ὦµον ἔθηκαν καὶ πρὸς ἀλλήλους λέγουν: […] 780 But the marvelous young man could spin round swiftly, for he had little fat on him and his ribs stood out, and with four bounds he is catching up with the bear. He is seizing it quickly by the lower jaw, (he) is holding it and tore it in two; he is standing and gazing at it. His uncle and his father both are coming up together, they are standing and are being amazed at the young manʼs performance. They put shoulder to shoulder and are saying to each other: […] The narrator opens this section, which depicts the very peak of the hunt, with the HP καταφθάνει (775), accompanied by details like the exact number of steps taken by the hunter. The HPs πιάνει (776) and κρατεῖ (776) follow in an asyndetic juxtaposition that emphasizes the speed of the action and anticipates the aorist ἔσχισεν (777). These HPs underline the first heroic deeds of the young warrior and bring this important episode close to the audience’s perception. The HPs στέκει and θεωρεῖ (777) describe Digenis’ pleasurable evaluation of his accomplishment. The audience’s own reaction is similarly reported. The HPs ὑπᾶσιν (778), στέκονται, θαυµάζονται (779), and λέγουν (780) not only ex- 27 Shawcross, Chronicle of Morea 172–176, analyzes a longer section of version E that includes this passage as a comparandum for the Chronicle of Morea. She rightly notes the oral background of this device and, in regard to the tense-switching, draws an apt parallel with a sample of a modern sports com- mentator’s report. In agreement with modern narratological approaches like Fludernik’s, she recognizes tense-switching as a means of back- and fore- grounding. She also suggests (178–179) that the higher incidence of the present tense in Digenis E in comparison with chronicles and historiography is the result of a conscious narrative strategy distinctive of orality. ZUZANA DZURILLOVÁ AND MARKÉTA KULHÁNKOVÁ 377 ————— Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 62 (2022) 365–384 press wonder at Digenisʼ feat but invite the audience to pause and join his companions in admiring the youth’s heroic deed. Given these features, the HP in this passage should be cat- egorized as a mimetic in a scenic narrative. The observations so far lead us to the following partial conclusion: version G recounts events with a large degree of distancing and abstraction, whereas version E tends to provide more detailed visual descriptions of the events narrated. Both do so with the help of the HP: in G, the diegetic mode pre- dominates, whereas in E, the mimetic is preferred.28 More specifically, the HP in version E assists in creating scenes. Char- acters and events can be introduced in the present because the ‘here’ and ‘now’ are features of the discourse. This simulates a complex relationship of simultaneity between the narrator, the audience, and the story world by establishing a ‘shared ex- perience’, a ‘common experiential ground’ that interconnects these three dimensions.29 3. The mimetic HP as a means of immersion It has been convincingly argued that the modern notion of ‘immersion’ introduced into literary studies by Marie-Laure Ryan30 has its ancient counterpart in the term enargeia, “the power of bringing the things that are said before the senses of the audience.”31 It was this word that Greek literary critics used 28 For similar scenic representations in E, cf. 202–211, 304–317, 804–809, 1011–1017, 1052–1054, 1108–1111, 1686–1694. 29 S. Zeman lists three aspects of this common ground: the communicative situation (‘singer’ vis-à-vis ‘recipient’), the socio-pragmatic condition (‘indi- vidual’ vis-à-vis ‘tradition’), and the epistemological presupposition (‘speaker’ vis-à-vis ‘reality’: in Oral Poetics and Cognitive Science 188–189. 30 M.-L. Ryan, Possible Worlds, Artificial Intelligence, and Narrative Theory (Indiana 1991). 31 R. J. Allan, I. J. F. de Jong, and C. C. de Jonge., “From Enargeia to Im- mersion: The Ancient Roots of a Modern Concept,” Style 51 (2017) 34–51, at 34. For the Byzantine theory of enargeia, although chiefly in non-narrative 378 THE HISTORICAL PRESENT IN DIGENIS AKRITIS ————— Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 62 (2022) 365–384 when praising Homer for his ability to immerse his audience into the story world. Enargeia includes a wide range of immersive devices that “help the narratees mentally picture what they are being told.”32 In Homeric poetry, modern scholars have iden- tified the following devices as means of immersion: epithets, ek- phrases, visual details, acoustic jingles, apostrophes, embedded focalization, and scenic rhythm.33 Both versions G and E contain various immersive devices like direct speech, ekphrasis, and visual details, but they use them in different ways and to different degrees. In particular, the two versions differ in their use of HP in scenic narratives, which are numerous in E but almost entirely absent from G. If we look again at the two parallel passages above (G 1.226–233 and E 74– 90; G 4.124–138 and E 773–780), we see that the extracts from G have the form of summaries and that the characters’ emotional reactions are less intense. In contrast, in E the vivid representa- tion of the actions of the terrified brothers in a ditch full of dead bodies and a high degree of suspense are achieved primarily through scenic rhythm. This all creates a feeling of immediate experience, which is underscored by the frequent use of HPs, including verbs of perception (βλέπουν, θεωροῦν, θεωρεῖ, θαυµάζεται). To use the term coined by Monika Fludernik, the passages in E have a higher degree of experientiality and are, consequently, more immersive.34 We now turn to the immersive potential of the mimetic HP. genres and without considering the question of immersion, see S. Papaioan- nou, “Byzantine Enargeia and Theories of Representation,” Byzantinoslavica 69 (2011) 48–60. 32 Allan et al., Style 51 (2017) 39. 33 Allan et al., Style 51 (2017) 41. 34 Fludernik, Towards a ʻNaturalʼ Narratology 20, considers experientiality one of the crucial parameters that qualify a text as narrative: “Experiencing, just like telling, viewing or thinking, are holistic schemata known from real life and therefore can be used as building stones for the mimetic evocation of a fictional world.” ZUZANA DZURILLOVÁ AND MARKÉTA KULHÁNKOVÁ 379 ————— Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 62 (2022) 365–384 Its use in E can be explained effectively through the so-called representation scenario, as shown by Arjan A. Nijk who in- vestigated from a cognitive point of view the use of the present tense for a past state of affairs in a variety of narratives.35 The representation scenario designates one of two possible ways of connecting distal event space (story world) and ground space (the actual mental stance of the recipient) from the perspective of mental spaces. This connection may be effected in discourse with grammatical and linguistic means like the HP and proximal deictic expressions. In that case, usually (but not exclusively) a narrator recounts a story as if he were watching it unfold before his eyes thereby bringing the distal space into the present in a representation. As Nijk writes, “we remain grounded in our actual surroundings; and the present tense refers to the time in which we are looking at the representation.”36 Alternatively, recipients are made to feel that they have been transferred to the story world. This is called ‘displacement’.37 In both cases, the immersive potential of the mimetic HP is deployed to represent past events as if they were happening before the eyes of the recipient. This is not to say that a discourse carried out primarily in past tenses lacks imagery, or that the degree of immersion is generally higher in version E and lower in G. But they differ substantially in their strategies for achieving this effect and even put the same 35 Another way to relate distal space and ground space is through displacement. In addition to proximal deixis and the HP, often first-person narration also is used. The HP reports actual past events as seen from a displaced perspective. Cf. A. A. Nijk, “Bridging the Gap between the Near and the Far: Displacement and Representation,” Cognitive Linguistics 30 (2019) 327–350, and Tense-Switching 37–43. For more on cognitive approaches to the representation of past events in narrative see L. Gosselin, “Présentation et représentation: Les rôles du ‘présent historique’,” Travaux de Linguistique 40 (2000) 55–72; M. Vuillaume, Grammaire temporelle des récits (Paris 1990). 36 Nijk, Cognitive Linguistics 30 (2019) 329. 37 Nijk, Cognitive Linguistics 30 (2019) 328. 380 THE HISTORICAL PRESENT IN DIGENIS AKRITIS ————— Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 62 (2022) 365–384 narrative device, the HP, to different purposes.38 We hold that E depends heavily on the immersive function of the mimetic HP, which brings distal events before the mind’s eyes of its readers, while G almost entirely neglects this use of the HP. 4. The diegetic HP and narrative organization We now analyze how the summary narratives of the two versions use the HP. For narratologists the diegetic HP signals a narrative turn, i.e., an event or action that the narrator considers particularly important.39 In cognitive terms, we can say that it involves “a significant update to our mental model.”40 The two HPs at 1.56–57 in G provide an excellent example of this: διαδραµὼν Χαρζιανὴν Καππαδοκίαν φθάνει καὶ εἰς οἶκον τοῦ στρατηγοῦ ἀθρόως ἐπιπίπτει he overran Charziane, he comes to Cappadocia and falls overwhelmingly upon the house of the general. The entire passage from its beginning (1.44) exclusively features past tenses. The narrator does not switch the tense of the discourse until he recounts the emir’s invasion of Cappadocia (φθάνει) and the attack on the general’s house (ἐπιπίπτει). This is the starting point of the story, which provides a crucial narrative turn and triggers the events that make up its backbone. The change in the narrative dynamic is obvious.41 The HP draws attention to the new developments and underscores their im- portance. The same can be said of the first instance of the 38 In the case of G one can think of immersive devices like ekphrasis (of Digenis’ palace in 7.40–108, of loca amoena in 6.12–41 and 7.15–41) and long, embedded speeches by various characters (e.g. by the mother in 2.14–25, or the embedded narration of the Arabian girl in 5.66–149). Some of the devices used by G for achieving vividness and narrative coherence are discussed in Kulhánková, BMGS 45 (2021) 190–197. 39 Cf., e.g., Fludernik, Language and Literature 17 (1992) 77–107. 40 Nijk, Tense-Switching 161. 41 A metrical reason for the use of the HP is also possible since the present forms are placed at the close of the verse; but the two explanations are not mutually exclusive. ZUZANA DZURILLOVÁ AND MARKÉTA KULHÁNKOVÁ 381 ————— Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 62 (2022) 365–384 diegetic HP in E (9). Since the beginning of this version is missing, we consider instead a particular episode, which (as in G) is connected with a shift in space. The verb ὑπαγαίνω signals the start of a fight between the youngest brother and the emir: Καὶ ὁ ἀµιρὰς ’καβαλίκευσεν, εἰς αὖτον ὑπαγαίνει. The emir mounted and goes towards him. In both examples the diegetic HPs perform the same discourse-pragmatic function and have the same cognitive force: they mark a change in the narrative dynamic and cause audi- ences to update their mental model. There is, however, one substantial difference between G and E that relates to the distinctively formulaic language of E. We maintain that the diegetic HP in E is marked by a tendency towards repetition. This helps to connect the individual scenes and enhances the narrative coherence of the episodic poem. Bernard Fenik’s meticulous analysis demonstrates the importance in E of re- peating various structures in both direct speeches and narrative passages.42 This is one of its fundamental stylistic features. What follows adds further detail to Fenik’s presentation. From the semantic point of view, the largest group of present- tense verbs in E are reporting verbs (71). But instead of serving as narrative diegetic or mimetic HPs, they function as discourse markers, introducing direct speech.43 The second largest group of HPs are verbs of motion (60). The most frequent among them is ὑπαγαίνω (with 22 instances), followed by καβαλικεύω (17) and πηδώ (12).44 By marking the beginning and end points of episodes, repe- 42 B. Fenik, Digenis. Epic and Popular Style in the Escorial Version (Herakleion 1991). 43 The most frequent are: λέγω (30), λαλώ (15), συντυχαίνω (12), ἀπιλογούµαι (6). In G the present forms of λέγω are used only 14 times to introduce direct speech. 44 In G there are only two instances of the HP of ὑπάγω and three instances of καβαλλικεύω. 382 THE HISTORICAL PRESENT IN DIGENIS AKRITIS ————— Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 62 (2022) 365–384 titions of these verbs help to orient readers in the narrative. This signaling function of verbs of motion stands halfway between the use of HP for narrative turns and the lexicalized use of verbs of utterance as discourse markers to introduce direct speech. The verb ὑπαγαίνω occurs only in isolation, whereas πηδώ and καβαλικεύω also occur in a formula, for example at 560–570 in version E (note also λέγει as a discourse marker at 560):45 Καὶ τότε ἡ µητέρα του, ἄκο καὶ τί τοῦ λέγει: 560 “Τέκνον µου ποθεινότατον, ἔρχοµαι ὅπου θέλεις· ⟨ἔρχοµαι⟩ διὰ τὸ σπλάγχνον σου καὶ τὴν πολλήν σου ἀγάπην· ἀρνοῦµαι καὶ τὸ γένος µου, ἀρνοῦµαι καὶ τὸν Μαχουµέτ, τὸν µέγαν µας προφήτην. Ἀλὶ καὶ τί µὲ ἐποίησες, ἀλὶ καὶ τί µὲ ἐποῖκες;” 565 Καὶ πάραυτα ὁ ἀµιρὰς πηδᾶ, καβαλικεύγει. Μὲ τὸν λαὸν καὶ ἀγούρους του πηδᾶ, καβαλικεύγει καὶ ἀπεσύναξεν αὐτὸς πᾶσαν αἰχµαλωσίαν καὶ ⟨ἐξαπ⟩έστειλεν αὐτὰ τὴν πολυπόθητήν του καὶ µετὰ τὰ ἀµάλωτα ἄριφνους ἀνδρειωµένους. 570 And then his mother, listen to what she says to him: “My much-loved child, I will go wherever you wish, I go out of compassion for you and out of my great love for you. I renounce my family, I renounce Mohammed, our great Prophet. Alas, what have you done to me, alas what did you do to me?” And straight away the emir springs into the saddle. With his company and his youngsters he springs into the saddle. He collected together all his prisoners and sent them off to his dearly loved girl, And with the captives he sent innumerable brave men. In such cases, the HP enhances the formulaic language and underscores the role of formulas and of repetition generally. It provides a means of orientation in the text and strengthens its coherence. Again, as we observed in connection with the mimetic HPs, this is not to say that G is less coherent for not using this device; it merely takes a different approach to co- herence.46 45 This formula appears six times: at 566, 567, 927, 1009, 1274, and 1281. 46 Cf. Kulhánková, BMGS 45 (2021) 197–198. ZUZANA DZURILLOVÁ AND MARKÉTA KULHÁNKOVÁ 383 ————— Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 62 (2022) 365–384 5. Conclusions Let us now recapitulate the types of HPs used in the two versions of the Digenis Akritis. Both feature the diegetic HP in summary narrative and use it to change the narrative dynamic and signal narrative turns. In addition to its organizing function, in version E the HP, used primarily with verbs of motion, enhances the repetitive style characteristic of this text. E also displays the mimetic HP in scenic narrative, promoting im- mersion, and it can be interpreted in cognitive terms through the so-called representation scenario. Both versions regularly alternate the HP with past tenses. This accords with the assumption that the device arose in the oral tradition. While version E features sequences of present forms, these are short and do not approach the lengths of cultivated sequences of HPs found in modern literature. Our study of the HP confirms the view that the two versions belong to different linguistic registers: G belongs to the middle, E to the lower register. This division is supported by the presence of the mimetic HP in E and its absence from G, and by the distinctive use each version makes of the diegetic HP. Both E and G use the diegetic HP in summary narratives to change the narrative dynamic and draw attention to the recounting of salient events. But in E the HP is essentially a means of repetition, a characteristic trait of oral and (semi)-oral narrative that G does not exhibit. The repetition of particular diegetic HPs gives E a stylistic quality that not only points to its oral back- ground but also enhances its narrative coherence. Version G recounts events with a larger degree of distance and abstraction. Its sparse use of the HP is consistent with the observation that “tendencies toward distancing, abstraction, or detachment […] come to be associated with authoritative writ- ten discourse.”47 In version E, on the other hand, the abundant 47 T. A. DuBois, “Oral Poetics: The Linguistics and Stylistics of Orality,” in K. Reichl (ed.), Medieval Oral Literature (Berlin 2012) 203–224, at 209. Cf. Shawcross’s conclusions in n.27 above. 384 THE HISTORICAL PRESENT IN DIGENIS AKRITIS ————— Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 62 (2022) 365–384 use in scenic narratives of HPs with an immersive function pro- vides more detailed, visualizing, and engaging descriptions of events. Its formulas, moreover, exhibit the ‘connective’ function of the diegetic HP. All this agrees with the observation that “oral communications tend to hold a significance for the present.”48 Finally, our analysis reaches beyond the diachronic develop- ment of the HP and sheds new light on the synchronic variants of its use. It demonstrates how the HP can serve two stylistically different versions of the same story to preserve (or consciously incorporate) varying degrees of orality. Careful attention to the use of the HP not only aids the study of linguistic register, syntax, and stylistics, but it can also place a text within the orality- literacy continuum.49 November, 2022 Masaryk University Brno, Czech Republic 462048@mail.muni.cz mkulhanko@phil.muni.cz 48 DuBois, in Medieval Oral Literature 209. 49 This research was supported by Masaryk University (research project: “The Historical Present Tense in the Grottaferrata and Escorial versions of Digenis Akritis,” MUNI/IGA/1405/2020) and by the Czech Science Foundation (research project: “A Narratological Commentary on Digenis Akritis,” GA19-05387S).